Crash victim seeks $10 million-plus from state

Updated 11:40 pm, Tuesday, February 26, 2013

BRIDGEPORT -- A local restaurant owner, whose right leg was sheared off by a speeding state police car, is claiming more than $10 million in damages against the state.

Melvin Gordils, 48, his right leg gone, his left permanently mangled, was wheeled into a Main Street courtroom by his daughter as his civil trial against the state opened Tuesday.

Gordils, the father of five children and the owner of an East Main Street restaurant, nodded at the judge and the six jurors, but both he and the trooper who hit him clearly avoided looking at each other, even though they were just feet apart.

"If this trooper was obeying the law this wouldn't have happened," Gordils' lawyer, Michael Stratton, told the jurors as his client was wheeled from the courtroom. "He was never disciplined for what he did, so we have had to bring this case to you."

Gordils, formerly of Shelton, was on his way home on the Route 25/8 connector at about 2:30 a.m. on May 29, 2010, when his truck ran out of gas.

He got out of the truck and was crossing the southbound lanes when he was struck by the cruiser driven by Trooper Darren Pavlik.

Stratton told the jury that Pavlik was traveling more than 100 mph in the 45 mph zone without his lights or siren going.

The impact tore off Gordils' leg and it landed in a driveway two streets away.

Pavlik did not immediately stop but returned to the scene a short time later after a limo driver spotted Gordils' body by the side of the road and called 911, Stratton said. He said Pavlik later claimed he had been chasing a speeding car but he never caught that car or called in a pursuit.

"What I just heard is not what the evidence is going to show, it's a fallacy, a figment of his imagination," the state's lawyer, James Coyne, angrily retorted to the jury.

He denied that Pavlik was doing more than 70, and pointed out that at the time of the crash Gordils have a blood-alcohol level of .24, three times the legal limit for driving.

"He was drunk and he chose to put himself in harm's way," Coyne continued. "He was in control of his own destiny."

Judge Dale Radcliffe earlier told the jury of four women and two men that the trial is expected to last two weeks.